Preaching is agonizing. Giving birth to a sermon is a regular pain. The effect is felt in our emotional, spiritual, mental and physical selves. Rarely does a sermon fall together with ease, get delivered with nothing but joy and result in tangible spiritual fruit for all. Typically the preaching experience is unlike any other. It hurts. It raises huge question marks on a regular rhythm. It takes something out of you that leaves you vulnerable and broken. You can shrug off a bad round of golf, or a poor session at the gym before your peers, or even am uncomfortable evening of hospitality that didn’t quite go to plan. But a sermon is different. You don’t shrug it off. Even a good one leaves lingering doubts, feelings of failure and the gentle scars of sermonic ministry.
These things can be discouraging. The interrupted preparation. The blind side critique. The barbed feedback. The polite feedback. The excessive hand-shaking response coupled with the pathetic life response. It can all be discouraging, but let it encourage you today. If it was easy, if there were no struggles, no emotions, no sense of inner turmoil and personal agony, then perhaps it would be nothing more than a hobby, a personal venture. Preaching the Word of God is a spiritual battle of the first order. Just like evangelism. Just like missions. It’s not meant to be easy. It’s meant to be real. Let the agony reassure you. It’s real. God is real. So is the enemy. So is the battle. So will be the lasting fruit wrought through it all.
Biblical Preaching 
Oh, it is true, the self-criticism, the enemy bearing down, the pride rising its wicked head… The meditations playing over and over all that you wish you would have said or playing over and over all that you wish you would not have said. The secret crush of spirit you hide from all your parishioners… But then the pounding reminder of God’s transforming Truth comforts the soul: “Be still and know that I am God,” and “Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the Lord,” and “Behold, I have put my Words in your mouth.” Renewed strength!
I just finished studying and teaching Deuteronomy – Moses’ sermon to Israel at the end of their 40 year journey. In the latter chapters, as I studied, I cried. Moses must have hurt to know and express that God would not let him enter Canaan after he preached and pastored this nation for 40 years. Sometimes things seem to end in defeat, but Moses was shown much more than just the land by God. Read it again and draw strength. My crying stopped when I understood that Moses was rewarded with Christ Himself. I went to Hebrews and Jude. And I was ready to teach again.